I never thought I'd be starting a blog, but becoming parents quickly changes your views on a lot of things. Parker has thrown us for quite a ride in the first few days of his life and this seems like the most logical way to share our drama with the rest of the world. Here's to hoping that our life becomes more blah, blah, blah soon!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Day 2 of moving is complete and we're so worn out that we're sleeping on every one's favorite monster denim couch in the kitchen. The kitchen has a sitting area / living room and hopefully the couch will be recovered soon. Here's to sweet dreams and hopes if putting our bed back together tomorrow!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Last Monday, I went fly fishing for the first time. Benton had gone with our guide, Woods, the previous Thursday, so we knew we were in for a treat. We went with Teton Valley Lodge and were very impressed. I think it would be awesome to go up there again for a couples weekend and stay at the fishing lodge. Their lodge prices are all-inclusive and include your room, food, and guided fishing trip each day - and they have no other activities besides fishing!

As you can imagine, the scenery was amazing! The water was pretty clear up to about 6 feet deep and in the deeper places the river was almost a mossy green color.

The native trout to the area is a Cutthroat species. We each caught 6 or more cutthroats - you can tell which type of trout they are by their bright orange gill slits. I used a plastic orange indicator bulb to help me know when a fish had taken either the wet or dry flies on my line. Since we were floating along with the current and the flies weigh so little, it was sometimes hard to know when I had a bite. Our guide kept yelling "take!" when we thought I was getting a bite and I know I missed several fish during the day.

There are also brown and rainbow trout in the river as well. Our guide told us that there is a local movement to banish brown and rainbows from the portion of the river because they aren't native species. We only caught a couple of brown trout, although I had a pretty good sized one that I couldn't get into the boat. I'm going to blame the current and 30 mph winds, rather than admit that I was still trying to get the hang of fly fishing. Benton caught one baby rainbow trout but our guide didn't keep it long enough to take pictures. Woods was more into fishing than waiting for us to take pictures of each other. He said they would all look the same in the pictures - little did he know that I've taken lots of fish pictures and studied plenty of fish to know the difference!

We fished seven miles of river and were out form about 10:30am - 5:30pm. We had a great day and I can't wait to try fly fishing again. Thanks to Benton's parents for watching Parker all day so we could have some alone time on vacation!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Parker loves to be outside in the cool mountain air, but he hates to be outside and get hot. Look at this sweet smile with the mountains in the background! The house we rented this week is about 7 blocks from the Snow King resort and over looks the Teton County Fairgrounds where the Jackson Hole Rodeo is held.

We had a great dinner at the Blue Lion in Jackson, WY last night. They are famous for their lamb chops and they did not disappoint. Parker stayed up way past his bedtime, but he was content to listen to classical guitar on the patio by Marco. He went to bed around 10pm Mountain time and didn't wake up until 8:30am this morning!

Should I use my good Nikon camera with my zoom lens while on vacation or should I take more pictures with my iPhone and upload them immediately?

Most of my pictures this trip are on the good camera, but here is one from our fly fishing trip on the Snake river in Idaho today. We caught cutthroat, brown, and rainbow trout and lots of white fish (some bass species no one cares about catching). It was my first time fly fishing and I loved it - surprise, surprise. I think Benton was secretly hoping that I wouldn't like it or wouldn't be any good at it. Too bad for him - I'm "hooked"!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

I started back to work this week working Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8am - 4pm. Parker stayed home with Benton and his mom & dad. Today he is home with a recent college grad who we hope will be the one to watch him in the fall. Its weird to be away from home, fully dressed with makeup on, and able to go out for a long lunch with other teachers. I'll be ready to hang out with the munchkin on Thursday in my pj's. I won't work again until August 9th and from then on I'll be working mainly Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I'm really going to enjoy having a part-time gig!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Parker missed his first 4th of July fireworks, but after reading some of his friends' blogs it may have been a good thing. He went to sleep about 8:15 tonight and missed all the excitement. We'll wait until next year to see if all the noise and commotion scares him!